


Walking on Stars

by crownemoji



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Stargazing, this is my first fic... please do not doxx me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 06:30:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7673668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownemoji/pseuds/crownemoji
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“so,” Sans mumbles, uncharacteristically quiet. Grillby perks up, looking up from the glass he’s been drying for the past hour. “you, uh, know about perseids?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walking on Stars

“so,” Sans mumbles, uncharacteristically quiet. Grillby perks up, looking up from the glass he’s been drying for the past hour. “you, uh, know about perseids?”

Grillby shakes his head as he leans forward, resting his elbows against the bartop. Sans refuses eye contact, focusing instead on the plate of fries he’s been pushing around. He coughs, shoving one in his mouth. Gross. Cold fries are the worst.

“it’s, uh, a meteor shower? comes around every year, i’m pretty sure. give or take.” He shudders as he picks off another fry. Grillby, ever the gentleman, wordlessly heats the plate back up, and Sans nods his thanks. “it’s supposed to peak sometime next week, and i was thinkin’, y’know...we could…uh....” The rest of the sentence is lost to the fur lining of Sans's coat.

“What?” Grillby crackles. Sans coughs again, pointedly refusing eye contact.

“...check it out…” he mutters, a little louder.

Grillby pauses, as if in thought, before nodding slowly. Sans perks up at this, his ever-present grin somehow growing wider.

“that’s great! that’s, uh. good, i mean. it’s supposed to peak on the 16th, if you’re free?” Sans shrinks a little further into his parka, the blue of his face darkening. “i already checked the weather and stuff, and it's supposed to be clear skies, so..." He follows up with incoherent mumbling, and Grillby laughs, the flames of his face parting in a genuine smile.

Sans is dumbstruck for a moment, eyes frozen on Grillby's brightly-glowing face. When he laughs, his flames turn white, flaring and snapping with fervor, and Sans can't help but stare.

"y'know, i-" Sans chokes, looking away. "i'd better head out. see ya later, grillbz." When Grillby looks up, his seat is vacant.

With a sigh, he adds on to Sans’s tab.

\----

Grillby closes the bar early on the 16th, leaving several of his regulars particularly annoyed. As expected, Sans arrives late, knocking “shave and a haircut” against Grillby’s apartment door. He hears a muffled "coming!" from behind the door, followed by shuffling, and the door swings open. Sans freezes.

This is the first time he’s seen Grillby without his usual bartending outfit on. The elemental is dressed in a warm-colored peacoat and slacks, and his flame shines against his carefully-polished oxfords. The outfit is finished off with a plaid scarf, which Sans finds adorably unneccessary, and he can’t help but feel inadequate in his ratty sweatpants and novelty t-shirt (“Live Slow, Die Whenever”; a gift from Toriel).

“uh, wow,” Sans says, laughing breathlessly. “you tryin’ to get me hot under the collar?”

Grillby crackles with annoyance. Sans gives a crooked smile, nudging the elemental with his elbow.

“c’mon, grillbz, you don’t have to get so fired up,” the skeleton laughs, eyes glittering. “trust me, nobody holds a candle to you when it comes to fashion. you and that coat are a perfect match. and those shoes? they make you look smokin’.”

“.......Sans,” Grillby croaks, voice cracking with disuse.

“hm?” 

“..........how long… have you spent coming up with these?”

Sans makes a noncommittal gesture with his hand, which makes Grillby sigh a little louder.

The two walk side-by-side down the hall, almost close enough to brush shoulders, and Sans can't help but stare at Grillby. The pyre of his head tinges the scenery around them gold, the light flickering subtly. Sans's gaze shifts from Grillby's face to the hand closest to him, which looks awfully empty... Would it be too forward for him to grab it? Sans haphazardly shoves his hands into his pockets, willing himself to calm down. The silence between them is punctuated by the continuous popping and snapping Grillby gives off, his flames waving in the light breeze.

“........You’re quiet,” the bartender notes as they step outside. The night is warm and humid, and the sky above stretches on like an expanse of black velvet. Grillby pauses, head tilting upward.

“you’re not gonna see much out here,” Sans replies, ignoring Grillby’s comment. “there’s too much light in the city, so it blocks out the night sky…. you ever seen the stars out in the country?”

Grillby shakes his head, looking down to meet Sans’s gaze steadily. Sans feels his face grow a touch warmer.

“oh man, you’re in for a treat,” he laughs, walking Grillby to the car parked outside of the apartment building. “try not to make too much of a mess, by the way. this car is papyrus’s baby. yesterday, he started crying cuz he found a stale french fry under one of the seats.”

Grillby shakes with laughter as he climbs into the car, reaching for his seatbelt. He freezes when he sees Sans sit down in the driver’s seat.

“........Sans, you can’t see over the steering wheel,” he points out. “How are you going to drive?”

“eh, it’s fine,” Sans replies, shrugging. He cranes his neck, struggling to see the road. “i’m a wreck-ommended driver.”

“That’s not-- was that a pun? That’s awful,” Grillby chokes, unbuckling his seatbelt. “Get out. I’m driving.” Pause. "Please."

“...yeah, ok, that’s fair,” Sans laughs, hopping out of the car. “it’s better if you drive, anyways. i’m exhausted.”

“That one was even worse,” Grillby snorts as he climbs into the driver’s seat.

“c’mon, grillbz, you’re braking my heart.”

“There’s no need to be so m-- that was another one, wasn’t it?”

“i’d follow up with some bike puns, but i’m two tired.”

“Please stop talking.”

\---

It’s a two-hour drive to the location Sans suggested, a clearing on the peak of a mountain popular with teenagers in the area. Grillby shakes his head when Sans calls it a "total make-out point". After getting lost only 10 minutes into the journey, the two decided to plug in Papyrus’s GPS, which talks in a grating Microsoft Sam-esque voice, and Sans makes sure to mock it every time it speaks.

“...Sans,” Grillby starts around an hour into the journey. Sans has his hand on his chin, watching the scenery outside melt from suburbs to forest. “Can you… tell me about the sky?”

“the sky?” Sans asks, quirking an orbital bone. “you mean, like, space and stuff?”

“Yes,” Grillby murmurs, chancing a look at Sans. “You mentioned a PhD in astrophysics a long time ago?”

“you remembered that?” Sans says, sounding dumbfounded. He sits up, face brightening as he clears his throat.

“alright, so, what we’re about to peep up’s called the perseids. you know what a meteor shower is, right?” Grillby shakes his head. “it’s when, like, a bunch of space rocks and stuff get too close to earth, and the earth’s all, “nah, son” and burns that shit up.”

“What causes it to burn?” Grillby asks, seeming somewhat excited at the mention of things combusting. Sans can’t help but laugh, a low chuckle rumbling in his chest.

“it’s, like, physics, y’know? it winds up colliding with all the air molecules and junk in the atmosphere…”

Sans prattles on the rest of the ride, jumping from topic to topic - meteor showers, the Fermi paradox, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle (Grillby isn't quite sure what prompted the lecture on quantum physics, but he's not complaining) - and the fire elemental listens on in content silence, occasionally nodding or making a surprised popping noise to signify that he’s listening. When they reach their destination, Sans is excitedly chattering about the Tunguska event, gesturing wildly with his hands.

"- and they're all, "dude, that was totally a meteor", but there's no crater. so the entire scientific community is shitting their collective pants-”

“Is this it?" Grillby asks quietly, nudging Sans's shoulder. Sans cuts himself off, squinting as he looks out the window.

"i guess? uh, no offense, but it's kinda hard to see out the window. you're kinda givin' off a glare." Grillby quickly apologizes, stepping out of the car, and Sans follows suit.

Sans shoves his hands back into his pocket, scanning the view around him. They're parked near the edge of a cliff, surrounded by woods on 3 sides. Below, the lights of distant buildings litter the forest scenery, and Sans can't help but think of the crystals in Waterfall.

"this might be it? i've never been there in person." Sans shrugs, plopping himself on the hood of the car. "either way, looks like we're alone." Cough. "pretty nice view of the sky, huh?"

He looks over at Grillby. The fire elemental is stock still, head tilted towards the sky and mouth slack. The flare of his head grows brighter and brighter, wavering with every shallow breath, and Sans can't help but give a genuine smile.

"....It's....." Grillby murmurs, voice cracking. "It's so......"

"out of this world?"

".......Beautiful," Grillby finishes. Without taking his eyes off of the sky, he moves to sit next to Sans, shifting backwards until he can sit cross-legged.

"...yeah. yeah, it is," Sans agrees, the lights of his eyes fixed on Grillby.

They're so close, he thinks, and he can feel the gentle heat radiating off of Grillby. If he were to move just barely to the right, they would be touching. There's something thrumming in his chest, something that urges him to lean over, to hold his hand, to tell him--

His breath catches in his throat when Grillby jolts, their arms brushing.

"....What was that?" Grillby breathes, body tense. "Was that...?"

"what?" Sans splutters, quickly shifting his eyes towards the sky.

Oh.

He actually hadn't bothered to look up since they had arrived.

It really was much clearer out here. The sky was the same opaque black it was back home, but out here, it seemed alive, the scope of it shimmering and flickering. The stars strewn across the sky glittered like thousands upon thousands of diamonds --

No. These were much, much brighter than crystals.

As if on cue, a meteor streaks across the sky, briefly drawing a brilliant line through the murk.

"There it is again," Grillby says, sounding breathless.

"that, my friend, is a meteor."

"It's beautiful."

Sans barely stops himself from telling Grillby that he is, too.

Instead, he takes a risk, leaning to the right until he and Grillby are touching. To his relief, the bartender doesn't notice, too fixated on the sky above.

Sans lets the conversation lapse into a comfortable silence, focusing on the way Grillby takes in a quick breath every time another meteor streaks across the sky. Eventually, he feels his eyelids grow heavy; the warmth radiating around him is like a cozy blanket, and, feeling at ease, he lets himself be lulled to sleep.


End file.
